an occasional column by Charles Faris, hhc

Hey there Non-Doc. I’m reading about this Spring Cleaning thing and I’m a little confused. What’s the difference between a Spring Cleaning and a detox? And how is this different from the kit cleanses I see t the health food stores?–Tempted and Confused

Well, Tac, I’m glad you asked, as there is nothing I like more than expounding upon the seemingly arcane differences between such concepts as cleansing and detoxing, of a food cleanse and a kit cleanse. So let’s just take your questions in order.

Spring Cleaning vs Detox

So we might look as if we are splitting hairs here, and for me the major difference between a Spring Cleaning and a detox is intent, although the specificity of the time of year for a Spring Cleaning as well as the method also come into play.

Let me just start by saying that detox is a pretty general phrase, describing any number of ways to rid the body of toxins. A detox can be general or specific. You could take a detox for mercury poisoning, for example, or you could be interested in a good overall purge. The basic idea for most all detox programs, however, is the use of herbs and other powerful substances to target specific toxins in the body and pull or flush them out.

In this way, there are definitely some detox elements to a spring cleanse, which is at once both more general and also of different intent than a detox. The Spring Cleaning is concerned not only with toxins, it is concerned with the actual quality of your gut, the small and large intestines. The Spring Cleaning is primarily focused on your digestive system; on giving it a rest, on avoiding foods which clog up or slow down the digestive process, and on cleaning out the sludge that has built up over the years.

So while a detox may target substances that are in your blood, tissues and organs, the Spring Cleaning is aimed at your digestive system, your large and small intestines as well as your liver. While as a result of cleaning up these organs you may then do a good detox, due to the more efficient work they are able to perform, being all tuned-up as it were, these larger benefits of the Spring Cleaning are not its primary target or goal.

Food Cleanses and Kit Cleanses

Now, as to the difference between a food cleanse such as the Spring Cleaning and a kit cleanse that you might find in the store. In general, there are two types of kit cleanses, the detox and the colon cleanse. I’ve already dealt with the detox, which is often simply a type of temporary flush designed to help people who need to pass a urine based drug test on order to get a job or stay out of jail etc, so I’ll focus on the cleanse kits.

The cleanse kits are working in the same realm as the Spring Cleaning, using herbs and fiber, usually psyllium, to do the same work that the Spring Cleaning accomplishes with good old food straight from nature. In this way, the Spring Cleaning is generally easier on your system, without any of the kick back that you get when your body has to adust to the stopping of the herbs and fiber.

Let’s get into that a bit. Most of the kits contain two types of herbs, an herbal laxative and an herbal toner. The toner contains herbs that nurture and strengthen the colon, while the laxative is a stimulant that gets things moving along. This is naturally weakening for the colon when done for a prolonged period of time, so these two sets of herbs offer up a balance; the one hand giveth and the other taketh away.

With the kit cleanses as well, we have the fiber. The fiber is taken with water, sometimes mixed with clay, a natural detoxifying agent, in order to provide bulk, to provide the colon something to push through the system, acting like a broom of sorts to sweep out the gack and the frack that has been coating the lining of your colon for years perhaps. Ever looked down into a clogged drain to see the gunk that is stopping it up? Yeah. Kinda like that.

So two problems here, in my own experience as well as the experience on many others. When you quit the kit, the body has a withdrawal reaction from the herbs and the fiber. Just like your body would have a reaction if you quit giving it caffeine or alcohol or any other powerful substance. And what the herbs and the fiber were promoting, movement in the bowels, begins to slow down and possibly stop. A frequent complaint after a kit cleanse is constipation. Yuck. Back to square one. Sometimes people will go back and get another kit just to get the process going again in order to slowly kick the habit. Yeah.

Transform your Relationship with Food

With Spring Cleaning, there are no laxative herbs or added fiber. No concentrated substances to wean yourself off of once the cleanse if done. The Spring Cleaning works with common foods, powerful in their own right, and nothing that you have to worry might throw you into a negative cycle.

Spring Cleaning is actually an invitation to eating habits that are healthy for your digestive system, habits that you can sustain for  a lifetime. Spring Cleaning is an invitation to transform your relationship with food, digestion, and your immune system by changing your eating habits for a week and observing what happens. What could be better than that?

I hope I’ve offered you some clarity, Tac. Please use the comments if you have any additional questions about food, healing, and the nature of the digestive system. I love the opportunity to expound!

photo by riot jane

photo by corey leopold

taxes looming

today was the day to talk about green leafy vegetables…and the tax man is standing over my shoulder as we speak, sickle in hand, waiting, waiting. the little cartoon balloon over his head says

keep blogging little procrastinator. tomorrow at midnight i will reap you like summer wheat!

so the greens will have to wait a week!

#web2.0fail

however, since it’s so fresh and such a great example, and since it dovetails nicely with the power of procrastination, i have to make a few comments on the great #amazonfail of easter weekend.

first it was simple: amazon is evil. pull out your torches and your pitchforks! run them out of town. boycott!

then it was less simple: oh, it was an attack on amazon by a troll? well, i still hate amazon anyway.

then it was a clusterfuck: it’s amazon…no it’s the troll…no it’s the christian right…not it’s the glitch that stole christmas…no it was the french guy who pushed the wrong button…

is patience procrastination’s younger sister?

well the human desire for a neat tidy conclusion is alive and well online, obviously. and as usual, a bit of patience or procrastination would have been much more appropriate, unless of course you enjoy either:

1. cruising about cyberspace with egg on your face, or
2. watching all the cruising and cluster-fucking.

of course my favorite part was watching the civilians get into it with the professionals, especially whenever someone suddenly discovered the true story, which of course we will never know.

actually my favorite part of this was havi’s post, which used the controversy to wedge into a potent conversation of local vs. big box.

hold onto your conclusions

and your pitchforks! they might come in handy later. if only for making and turning a nice pile of compost!

photo by corey leopold

  photo by jelles

why don’t we do what we say we want to do?

the way i see it is that we are either deluded about what we say we want to do, ie we don’t really want to do it, it’s just an idea, something we haven’t really gotten into or even thought through, and what we really want to do is sit on the couch and watch television, or we think it is not really possible.

okay then, or well. thinking it through…that’s the solution for the first group…

• take the time. 
• think it through. 
• research it. 
• talk to people who are doing it. 
• read books. 
• examine yourself. 
• try it in baby steps. 
• get to know it like you’d get to know a girl or a guy–
• don’t just sit back and have a silent obsession!

and then that other group–equally deluded into thinking that what they want to do is impossible: well maybe it is. like if you want to…well i actually can’t think of anything that is impossible other than those obvious things like teaching cows to dance ballet…in which case we have a 3rd type of delusion on our hands, or more likely a simple hack of redirecting that desire into teaching digital cows to dance ballet. or something like that.

the impossible group

so this second group, the impossible group, is dealing with, well, this is more challenging that group number one, many of whom end up in this group once they get clear about whether or not they really actually do want to do that thing they say (think) they want to do. and the first thing here again is to explore with thought and such just how true this idea of impossibility is. it doesn’t matter if the impossibility is based on fear or on more supposedly rational reasons. just break it down and see if you are running up against things like scale. or specificity.

the frank sinatra example

like maybe you won’t ever be frank sinatra. duh. and maybe you can find some people to play music with. and maybe some of the people who hear you sing might comment that you remind them of sinatra.

and lot’s of people make a living (or a good chunk of one) playing music. always important though, to separate your lifestyle from the things that you do for cash, from where your money comes from. because if you want to be a millionaire and travel the world, and you want to sing like frank sinatra, well all of that isn’t too far fetched. there are lot’s of millionaires, there are lot’s of people who travel the world, and there are lots of people who sing like frank sinatra.

it isn’t by any means impossible to do any of those things, if you really want to do them and you are willing to put thought, heart, and deed into them. however. it isn’t quite as likely that you are going to make the million because people think that you are the re-incarnation of frank sinatra.

what makes the muskrat guard its musk?

and why should that stop you from pursuing your musical dream? and why should that stop you from travelling? and why should that stop you from making some $$? if your dream requires a guarantee of hitting the top tomorrow that’s deluded group number 4. sorry. and here’s the thing…

what makes a truly great singer is that they will sing regardless. what makes a great world traveller is that they will find a way to travel regardless.

so let go of scale and begin where you are. and don’t burden your dreams with the job of making you a million dollars!

climbing the ladder

so here i sit, raw green smoothie in hand, pondering another week of life on this planet earth. another week in my year of self healing: taking the time and offering the awareness to obtain optimal health, and with it, making this year my best year ever. and what the heck has transpired in this third week of february, 2009? well, let’s have a look.

on monday i offered up some motivation to get away from the world of screens and into the world of flesh and blood, expressing a bit of concern about my current ratio of virtual reality vs. regular reality, which is pretty ironic since one of the major motivations for an on-line presence for myself has been the quest for the ultimate lifestyle design of something which, if not a four hour work week, then something less than a 20 hour work week. more about that later.

i win! saith rowan

hand in hand with that quest to back away from the screen was the dive toward more natural living, as in getting out into nature and eating food as close to it’s natural state as possible. and i’m happy to say that i’m pretty happy with how that all worked out. i’ve been pretty much mia on twitter, completely backed up on my rss, and presumed dead or kidnapped by aliens in my online communities. woo hoo!

here in roslindale i’ve been out for some great walks, solo and with the family, i’ve kept true to my goal of eating lot’s more fresh raw food (without giving up my bacon and eggs!), and i’m getting pretty good at i spy bingo and chutes and ladders, although rowan still seems to win more times than not. 

an interview

i also, gasp, went out for a job interview. yikes! yes. a job! at a location! with a schedule! and a boss!

lions and tigers and bears oh my!

yep.

now. i know that getting a job is the stupidest thing that a person can do. it’s a time suck, you only get paid when you are working, you don’t get residuals off the work you’ve already done. hell, just press the link and steve pavlina will tell you all about it.

and sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. and when one of those things you gotta do it pay rent, and another one of those things you gotta do is pay the co-pay on a wrecked car, and and and buy food seeds for the garden clothes for the spring etc…

a little observation

so yeah, about that lifestyle design thing. or whatever you want to call it. the online success game. the don’t work for other people thing. okay.

super important here. that’s a how.

repetition for ease of paying attention

that

• getting paid to be yourself, 
• find a way to make money doing something you love, 
• outsource all your work and spend 4 hours a week managing the person who manages your outsourcers…

that whole online success thing that we have all seen laid out a hundred different ways with a hundred different levels of success by a hundred different wild and wonderful people…

those are descriptions, not prescriptions!

yeah. whenever someone goes on about how to do something, how to achieve something…stop for just a second and ask youself if you are that person. as in

am i steve pavlina?

am i the sort of person who 

• starts out a vegetarian
• graduates to vegan
• conquers the mountain of raw foodism

am i going to become polyamorous, polyphasic sleeping superman?

no i’m not

i’m much more likely to eat some green apples and slide down the chute to square 11, drat. or skate on thin ice and slide back to square 53 drat. or paint without proper painting attire and slide back to square 73 drat!

which is why it is so important to skip the hows, especially other people’s hows, and just go with the flow while keeping your eyes on the real prize, which in my case includes time outdoors, playing with rowan, learning how to communicate with randi, writing and singing songs, etc.

and if a car pulls up called “good job that you will like it” and the driver says, “hey…can i give you a lift part of the way?”…well…am i going to pass that up because it doesn’t fit into my perfect plan of how to get to the top of the hill? to the big prize at square 100?

do you spin perfectly every time?

‘cos here’s the big thing i learned playing chutes and ladders. there is an optimal way up to the top. to being able to yell, as rowan does, “i win!” yet i have no real control over my spin. just as i have no real control over thousands of factors in my life. so for all i know taking a job right now, even though that is not in my long range vision of my optimal life, might be that perfect ride that takes me a ways down the road and drops me off at the right place and the right time for…

what is your vision that is too fucking huge to be planned out with elaborate hows?